By Steve Kim
Despite its low ratings this past weekend for the broadcast that featured Abner Mares' latest title winning effort versus Jesus Cuellar from the Galen Center in Los Angeles, Stephen Espinoza, the Executive V.P and General Manager of Showtime Sports and Event Programming, is taking the long term approach to things.
Showtime’s broadcast peaked at 377,000 viewers and averaged 327,000, according to statistics released Tuesday by Nielsen Media Research. Much of Mares’ win against Cuellar competed directly with HBO’s telecast of the Terence Crawford-John Molina Jr. main event, which peaked at 871,000 viewers and averaged 806,000.
"I think a couple of things: we'd been off for a couple of months and then going head-to-head with HBO and we've got to get the Showtime guys back in the rotation," reasoned Espinoza.
"There's obviously a big advantage in having guys exposed across a range of networks but the downside is that it's sometimes difficult for fans to follow those guys across networks and find out when they're fighting. So as they come and appear more consistently it'll be easier for fans to follow."
Espinoza believes that with a certain amount of consistency that they will rebuild their audience. Showtime's commitment to boxing is as strong as ever.
"The reality is boxing has been and continues to be an important piece of Showtime programming and Showtime Network programming overall and that's been consistent over the years and it's consistent over the calendar,"said Espinoza."So we are presenting a diet of high quality boxing and we're servicing our subscribers and we're doing that pretty effectively nowadays."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.
